Halloween

Halloween usually passes me by like any other day on the calendar, it never meant much, I just noticed a huge stock of pumpkins appearing at the entrance to the supermarkets and ordinary sweet packets having a rather ghoulish makeover. However, since I moved to Hampshire, I've started to take an interest in this pagan ritual.  The village shops are donned with pumpkins and autumn leaves, my local pub hosts a fancy dress party and goes to town with ghosts, ghouls and spiders webs hung amongst the spirits and dangling from the lampshades. So this year I decided to make something of this occasion. I purchased a couple of pumpkins and carved some spooky faces, bought some confectionary eyeballs, bats and skeletons. I arranged them on a table outside my kitchen window and positioned a gravestone (polystyrene of course) some bones and skull lantern on the  small patch of grass in the front garden, resting my broomstick by the grave, for a quick getaway!  But I didn’t stop there, I drew a spooky house, some trees, gravestone and crows which I cut out from some black card, I finished off with some orange crepe paper that was draped from the ceiling and loads of bats and skulls fixed to the walls. We invited a couple of friends round and watched a rather tame movie but then caught one of the episodes of 'Inside number 9' which was a bit creepy!  The evening was a  great success, even though I’m not a huge fan of horror movies especially all that blood and gore, I did at least get to dress up in my witches outfit something I’ve always wanted do! I hope to continue this tradition as it was something new and exciting it felt free and fun. It certainly was something to look forward to especially as the nights are drawing in and the weather has been appalling. It also had an added bonus of becoming a feeding station. The blue and great tits were pecking at the pumpkins and eating some of the seeds I had left out after the carving and the nuthatch, blackbird and robin were foraging for bugs under the table in the undergrowth. It was like watching an episode of 'Wildlife on One' Now the decorations have gone the room does look somewhat bare, I miss seeing the bright orange faces that illuminated the front garden and the birds pecking at the treats. All that is left is my broomstick and tiny gourd that grew from left over seeds from last year’s pumpkin with its googly eye staring up at me when I open my front door. It does make me smile

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